Memory Card Failure Prevention. Avoid Data Corruption in your Memory Card. DSLR Tips 

Thank you, everything you put out has helped me....I am a novice at best.

You make everything sound so simple Gibran! Thank u!! : )

Hey Jibran..Great tips as always... I also read one article recently on the same issue...and learn another very important tip..Try not to run out of battery while shooting...cause your camera will shut down while writing the image on the card and this incomplete action may also corrupt the card..just thought to share it...thanks..

I work in IT, and the answer is a little technical; but what we are actually dealing with here is 1's and 0's when a picture is taken what it really is on your memory card is some combination of 1's and 0's that create the image, and those can be recalled by the operating system to display it. When you delete something, what you are actually doing is putting new 1's and 0's down in it's place, this new combination signals the operating system to know that this space is "blank"

I just had this problem, and now I know why. I was erasing a lot of pictures in camera from a memory card that had less than a month of use. My camera stopped writing the pics to the card and gave me an error message. Thanks for the info!

I've never heard of formatting 3x, thanks for sharing!

4. Absolutely so! Electrical signals are travelling though the camera bus lines to the SD and voltages are powering the storage chip hence if at any time the power is abruptly interrupted and data hasn't yet finished transferring, indeed it will corrupt the file. Moreover, removing the SD doesn't always mean that all the pins are extracted at the same time and micro-sparks can happen thus destroying the while chip (together with the RAM). The results can be unpredictable.

BTW, I am brand new to the world of DSLR photography, and I really appreciate your videos :)

Thanks for the great video! I work in IT, and I can explain the reason formattinf

Brotha thank u for this vid.now i know y my memory card on my phone r corupted coz i been doin the things that he said not to do.this is y im subscribe on ure you tube bra u sir is tha man.i learn lots from u.

Thanks for this vid. I bought a high memory card to go on vacation and on the last day, the camera stopped writing the pics to the card and gave me an error messsge. I was bummed that my last day I couldn't take pics, but now I know why. I'm still learning to use my dslr do I was erasing a whole lot of "test" shots, or just bad pics. Now I know not to do that anymore.

They say you learn something new everyday I just did ......format 3 times who knew ....do they list that with instructions of the card packaging and if now why not?? !! !! and thanks so much for sharing

yep true, you can format your card & go right back in and recover the images

i have a question.. where is better to format the sd card on the computer or on the camera self?

Are u supposed to format it 3 times after every time you transfer your images or 3 times all together while you have the memory card

Sorry but this just wrong. If you research how flash memory works, You'll see that formating only erases the table of contents. Even if you format your Card 100 times you still can recover your pictures as long as you have not overwritten them. (Google recuva and try it) Formating once is enough to free the space on the card. Would you not agree that if formating 3x is really a good idea Nikon,Canon and co would do it automaticly? The original Video was right on 3 and 4

So what happens if like me you use an eye-fi x2 pro that has endless memory. It deletes photos to keep letting you take photos AFTER it wirelessly sends them to your ipad or tablet?

It is probably ALWAYS possible that an image could be re-discovered from your imaging card. But by formatting multiple times, you are repeatedly laying down this series of 1's and 0's that indicates your card is "blank" which is basically reducing the opportunities for errors in the pattern. I know that's a lot to swallow, but it was irritating me to read some of your posters saying that it was wrong. What you are suggesting CAN help to prolong the life of your card

1. Formatting 3 times only means you are losing 3 times the time to clean your card, you are not a forensic data retriever, you are only a photographer who wants the memory to last as much as possible. Simple: the more your write to the mem, the more you are going to run out of writing cycles (and they are limited, huge numbers but still limited). Oh and BTW, when you format from the camera you only delete the TOC, not the data area (that is why your file are still recoverable)

I have got Magic Lantern installed and i am not going to format all that of the card every time I unload the data.

They say you learn something new everyday I just did ......format 3 times who knew ....do they list that with instructions of the card packaging and if now why not?? !! !!

I hope my contributions help.

Dont believe every thing you hear/read on the net. A single format in camera is enough. Not to fill the card 100% , erasing single photos and low battery might have some truth to it on very low budget devices where chances for firmware issues are bigger. Never remove a card with device powered up. I would add this advise: dont put all eggs in one basket. Use more than one card and store them carefully!